Getting Through the Pain
by iHeartMusic-27
Summary: One-shot: When Serena dies, Emily is left all alone. She feels lost, hopeless. The only way she can make herself feel better- cutting. But when one of the rangers walks in on her, how will she explain herself?


**Author's Note: Hey guys! So this is the one-shot I created that I wasn't sure if I wanted to publish. But, after some convincing I decided that I would. The reason I didn't know if I should post it or not is because of the cutting, and the depression. It's just such a heavy topic. I really hope I don't offend anyone in any way by this story. It's also not meant to promote self-harm in any way, shape, or form. So please enjoy the story, and don't forget to review/favorite! **

**Disclaimer: I do not own Power Rangers Samurai. **

**Getting Through the Pain**

Emily sat on the bathroom floor, holding the sharp blade over her scarred skin. The old scars were starting to fade, but they were about to be replaced with new ones. Her legs and arms were covered in the discoloured lines, and she still had bandages on from the last time she cut herself.

Water had stained her cheeks, and her eyes were still red and puffy. Her whole body was shaking as whimpers escaped her trembling lips. She couldn't contain the cries any longer, and she let the sobs and tears come out freely. She dropped the blade and pulled her legs into her chest with her arms wrapped tightly around them. She sat against the bathtub, curled into a little ball.

Her tears were falling hard now, falling onto her exposed skin. She was wearing her shorts and a tank top, showing off her battle wounds, as she liked to call them. She could feel the cold, salty water hit each of the scars. She kept crying, but still trying to calm herself down. At times like these, Serena was the only one who could calm her down. But Serena was gone now, and she wasn't coming back.

_*Earlier that day..*_

"_Emily, may I talk to you for a minute, please?" Mentor Ji asked, beckoning the young girl over._

"_Sure Mentor!" Emily replied with her fake bubblyness, she always used it to fool the others into believing she was actually happy._

"_Let's talk in the dojo, privately." Ji said as he led the way._

"_I have some news for you from home." Mentor said uneasily as he shut the door to the dojo._

_Emily's face immediately fell. She knew the no-contact rule, and she knew how harshly it was enforced. No one was to communicate with anyone back home unless it was an emergency. So for Mentor to need to talk to her privately, especially about her family, it wasn't a good sign. _

"_She's dead isn't she?" Emily asked, her face free of any emotion._

"_I'm afraid so.." Mentor said sadly._

_He gave his "daughter" a comforting hug. When he let go he saw that she wasn't crying, she had no emotion present on her face. But then, he looked into her eyes. He saw the shock, the sadness, sorrow, hurt, and most of all he saw the pain. _

_He was about to say something, but he was interrupted when Emily ran off. She ran out of the dojo and down the hall into her room. She started rummaging through her dresser until she found the item she was searching for. In a ball of clothes, was the only thing she could count on to make herself feel better. She took the blade and walked into the bathroom. She locked the door before she exploded in cries of pain._

Emily began sobbing even more, unable to control herself. Her beloved sister had died. The only person who knew about her self harm, the only one who knew how to calm her down at these times was gone. And Emily couldn't take it.

She had started cutting herself when she was 14. It was the start of her highschool career, and the kids were still relentlessly teasing her. But this year it had gotten worse, much worse. She had been called fat, a slut, bitch, ugly, worthless, pathetic, any names the kids could think of to hurt her. Besides the name calling, they would make the boys hurt her. The pain didn't end when she got home from school, far from it. At home, the pain only got worse, the words sunk in, and the pain really started to kick in.

After a few weeks she started to believe the kid's words, and this was when the self harm had begun. She tried cutting herself once, and found it helped the pain. Once she started, she couldn't stop.

Every day Emily would come home, lock herself in her room, and cry her eyes out for hours on end. If she felt the pain was too much to bear, she grabbed her blade and took it with her to the bathroom. Once there, she would sit on the floor against the door, and watch the red liquid follow the line she would create. Sometimes she would even carve words, like 'fat' or 'ugly' into her skin like she was a pumpkin at Halloween.

Soon though, Serena noticed her sister's weird behavior. Long sleeved shirts, hoodies, and pants were all she ever wore anymore. Never even a t-shirt or some shorts. One day she saw her sister was sweating, her face pale and cheeks flushed, so she took her sweatshirt from her. When she saw the scars she started bawling. She had to confront her about it. Emily explained the situation to Serena, and Serena comforted her. After that, every time Emily wished to hurt herself she went to Serena. Most times, talking it out helped and she wouldn't hurt herself. Sometimes though, when it wouldn't help Emily referred back to her old way of making herself feel better.

When Emily had to take her sister's place and leave for the Shiba house, her sister's comfort was no longer with her. When she got back to the Shiba house her bad habit continued. No one had yet found out, and she planned to keep it that way. But now that Serena was gone, Emily wasn't sure she could go on much longer.

She uncurled herself from the ball, and with shaky hands she reached for her blade. She picked it up and held it to her wrist. She pressed down and slid it across her skin. The blood started to come out of the cut. Emily repeated the process again, this time making a slightly longer line across her left wrist. She looked down at the blood seeping through the wounds. She loved to see the blood tracing the line she had made in her skin.

Suddenly she heard a knock on the door. Emily stayed still as the door slowly creaked open. Instead of looking up though she kept her head down. She was too ashamed and afraid to face whoever had seen her. But she didn't know who had found her, and the curiosity was getting the better of her.

Emily looked up to see Mike standing in the doorway of the bathroom. Mentor had asked him to check up on Emily and see how she was doing. When he heard sobs coming from the bathroom and saw the light was on he tried to open the door. He realized the door was locked though and he grabbed a screw driver from the tool box in the shed and picked the lock.

Emily hadn't heard Mike's calls, and was shocked to see him standing in the doorway. He was standing there, dumbfounded by what he was witnessing. Emily was sitting on the bathroom floor with makeup running down her face, a bloody wrist, a blade in her right hand, and her scars exposed.

Mike had never seen so many scars on one body. He had always wondered why Emily never wore shorts or short sleeved shirts, but he had never bothered to ask. Now he knew why. Her thighs were covered in dark lines, and her wrists appeared to be matching. He even saw what appeared to be words cut into her body as well. His heart was breaking for the young girl.

He then looked to her wrist, where the blood was still coming from the multiple cuts. Without saying a word, he grabbed a white towel sitting by the sink and kneeled down beside her. He gently took her bloody wrist and began dabbing the blood off. Emily made no move as Mike continued to clean away the blood from her cuts.

"Thanks." Emily said meekly as Mike finished cleaning the blood.

"Why would you do this to yourself?" Mike asked her, looking right into her eyes, silently begging for an answer.

Emily couldn't lie to Mike. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn't bring herself to do it. She felt she had a connection with him, and decided it would be okay to trust him with her problems. She looked back into his forest green eyes with her red, puffy ones.

"Serena. She's gone." Emily managed to tell him, letting a few tears slip down her face.

Mike didn't say anything, he just hugged her tight. He soothingly rubbed circles on her back as he held her. Before long, Emily was in tears again. She was weeping loudly into his shoulder.

"It's okay, Em. I'm here." Mike said, trying to comfort the hurting girl.

"I-I want her back! It hurts!" Emily managed to say between sobs.

Mike's heart broke as she said those words. He couldn't imagine the pain she was going through. Her sister had died, and she was deeply hurting. She had gone through so much with her sister's sickness, the nighlock, and not to mention the bullies. They had killed her from the inside, and she appeared to be close to dying on the outside too.

"I know. Everything is gonna be okay though, I promise." Mike comforted.

"Serena promised everything would be okay, too. It's not though." Emily said as she looked up at him with her sad eyes.

Mike didn't know how to respond. He was so confused. Everything was happening so fast. Within a matter of minutes he found out that the girl that seemed so happy and put together on the outside, was broken and depressed on the inside. He could see she wasn't new to hurting herself. With the amount of scars, he knew this had been going on for quite a while.

"I will do everything I can to make everything alright again. Okay?" Mike

asked her.

All he wanted was to see her smile. Not that smile she normally had, the one he was just now realizing was fake. He wanted her to smile, to really smile. To be truly happy, even for a moment. That was all he wanted, and he would do everything in his power to make sure it happened.

"I'm not sure I remember what alright feels like anymore." Emily said.

This time, his heart really did break. It felt like it had shattered into a million tiny little pieces. Mike had to try his hardest to not break out in tears himself. He had always thought Emily was happy. But as it turned out she was the complete opposite. It was obvious that she was depressed, and had been for an extensive amount of time.

He finally let go of her, as it appeared she had run out of tears. He looked Emily in the eyes. She looked back up at him with her glistening hazels, and he saw the pain in her eyes. He saw the pain that he had missed in her eyes all this time.

"Then I'll make sure you remember real soon." Mike said with a slight smile.

Emily replied with a weak smile back. That was all she wanted, to feel alright again. But depression had sucked her in, and she couldn't find her way out. All she wanted was to feel like everything would be okay. She hadn't felt that way in a long time, and she yearned for the feeling to return.

Serena had promised her once before that everything would be alright. But unfortunately, she had died before she could fulfill the promise for her baby sister. But when Mike promised, Emily had a feeling that this time may actually be different. Maybe this time, things actually would turn out all right.

"Thanks Mike." Emily said as she hugged the boy dressed in green.

"Of course. But will you promise me one thing Em?" Mike asked her as he turned her face so her eyes were aligned with his.

"What is it?" Emily questioned.

"Don't do this to yourself anymore. I know it will be hard, and it won't be an easy thing to do, but please Em, stop doing this to yourself. You're better than this. You don't need to hurt yourself to feel better. You're beautiful, and you're amazing, and I don't want to see you in pain." Mike pleaded with the blonde, curly haired girl.

"I promise." Emily said, breaking down into tears.

No guy had ever called her beautiful, or amazing, or anything remotely similar. So when Mike said it, it meant a lot to her. It meant a lot to her to know that she meant something to someone. For the first time in a long time, she felt like she had a reason to be alive, like she wasn't worthless anymore. And it felt good.

"Good," Mike said with a big smile on his face, "so how about we clean you up, and go get some ice-cream? I bet it'll make you feel better." Mike asked the girl.

"Okay." replied Emily, her smile growing a little bigger.

Mike stood himself up, and reached his arm out to help Emily up to her feet. She grabbed onto his hand with her uninjured arm, and let him pull her up. When she was standing up again, he finished tending to the cuts on her wrist.

While he was fixing it up though, he couldn't help but notice all the other scars up and down her arms. They were everywhere, and they looked deep. Some even looked fairly recent. Soon though, he had finished tending to her arm. When he was totally finished, he took her arm gently in his hand again, and he kissed her newest battle wounds.

He then released her arm, and took her hand instead. She looked up to the boy with forest green eyes and smiled. He led the way out of the house as they made their way towards the ice-cream shop.

"That must have been a hard battle to fight." He said, motioning to the scars that covered her body.

"I'm just glad it's almost over." she replied.

"Me too." Mike said happily.

"Ya know the best part? I won." she said with a genuine smile.


End file.
